Science and Technology

University at Buffalo chemists have developed a remarkably simple and effective biotechnological method for synthesis of novel proteins using amino acids that do not occur in nature by using unique, programmable ribozymes (enzymes made of RNA, or ribonucleic acid) that they evolved in the lab. The technology provides a potentially important new tool in the field of proteomics, where scientists are working to understand all of the proteins that have been identified through the human genome project.

Leading researchers in the fields of earthquake and blast engineering, as well as social scientists with expertise in disaster response, are gathering in New York City today to examine the events of 9/11 and explore ways to make structures more resistant to terrorist attacks and reduce risk to inhabitants and emergency responders. During a two-day workshop, organized by the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, headquartered at the University at Buffalo, the researchers are discussing lessons learned from the September 11 attack and will offer recommendations for how government leaders, engineers, emergency personnel and private citizens might better prepare for future terrorist attacks.

Contrary to its revolutionary promise as a gender-free zone, cyberculture, women cyberspace pioneers argue, reproduces the power dynamics of sexist and racist practices and has a mythology that perpetuates inequality. They speak their minds in "Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture" (MIT Press, 2002), a groundbreaking collection of theoretical and fictional writing co-edited by UB librarian Austin Booth.

University at Buffalo scientists working with ice cores have solved a mystery surrounding sunspots and their effect on climate that has puzzled scientists since they began studying the phenomenon.

Structural engineers from the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), headquartered at the University at Buffalo, will gather in New York City later this month to discuss how earthquake-engineering practices and blast-resistant designs can be used to create "terror-resistant" buildings.Their analysis will be part of a two-day workshop, "Lessons from the World Trade Center Terrorist Attack: Management of Complex Civil Emergencies & Terrorism-Resistant Civil Engineering Design," on June 24 and 25.

Computer scientists at the University at Buffalo have provided the first peer-reviewed scientific validation that each person's handwriting is individual, according to a paper that will be published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences in July.

A geology professor at the University at Buffalo recently took graduate students enrolled in his advanced field methods class to western Mexico to study Colima -- the most active volcano in North America -- and its eruptive patterns, and to learn from residents what it's like to live beneath "el Volcan de Fuego," or "volcano of fire," as Colima is known.

A team of researchers led by University at Buffalo physicists reported today that they have created semiconducting materials that exhibit the key properties that are essential to the development of semiconductor spintronic devices.

Using advanced MRI brain imaging methods and tapping into one of the most powerful supercomputing systems in the world, University at Buffalo researchers in the Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center (BNAC) are providing insights into multiple sclerosis that never before were possible.

Jeffrey Skolnick, Ph.D., a world-renowned scientist in the fields of computational biology and bioinformatics, has been named director of the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics.